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ComFest: What is it? Let's ask Twitter

A huge party is hitting Columbus this weekend. Let's ask Twitter to help us understand what it is

By Patrick Martyn

I have a confession to make. I don't really know what ComFest is. I've lived in central Ohio most of my life, including 5+ years in Columbus, and it's still a mystery to me. I know it's some sort of festival. I know it happens in the summer. I know people like it. That's pretty much it, and I doubt that I'm the only one who is confused. In this modern day and age, though, finding answers to questions is easy. I have the whole of the Internet at my fingertips, and what better place is there to find answers than Twitter? Let's see what we can find.

According to its official Twitter page (@ComFest), it's "a party with a purpose." That's not very helpful, really. I mean, a lot of parties have purposes. Bachelor parties have a purpose. Birthday parties have a purpose. Even the Republican Party has a purpose. We're going to have to delve a little deeper if we want to find the answers that we seek. Let's see what sort of tweets and retweets we've got from @ComFest.

One of their first RTs is a link to this Instagram post:

Somehow, I'm even more confused. What does #catsofinstagram have to do with this weekend? If this were just a giant cat party, my sister definitely would have mentioned it to me by now. We're no closer to finding the purpose. I guess we're going to have to keep looking.

If we keep scrolling along, we find another RT from the ComFest account:

Wait, so now face tattoos are involved? Also, who wants a face tattoo? Even if it is temporary. Face tattoos make me think of face painting, which brings to mind either the circus or someone's 7th birthday party. I doubt that's the purpose of this weekend, though, as no one is excited about either the circus or a 7th birthday party, especially not adults. I'll have to dig deeper.

I'm just going to leave that one alone.

Let's leave their Twitter feed and try searching for tweets from people talking about Comfest. Surely they will know what they're excited about, right?

THAT DOESN'T HELP ME AT ALL, BORROR SHORT NORTH. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE? I'm starting to think that nobody really knows.

That's just a selfie, @brdly16. That doesn't help me at all.

Wait, that's just a selfie, too. What's going on here, people? Stop posting pics and answer my questions. What is ComFest, and what does "a party with a purpose" actually mean? And what was with all those cat shirts?

This doesn't really tell me what it is, though it is interesting that missing ComFest can make you "salty af." Should I be salty af that I've not gone to ComFest these past 27 years? That's a lot of pent-up saltiness that I didn't even know I had.

So is that it? Is ComFest about getting pizza? Not gonna lie, if it is a pizza fest, then I will be pretty salty about having missed it all these years. And if it isn't a pizza fest, why isn't there one? Does anyone want to help me set up the first annual Columbus PizzaFest? Reynoldsburg has a Tomato Festival every year; why can't we have one for pizza?

So I didn't find out what the purpose of the party is. Everyone seems pretty excited, though, which I guess is as much of an excuse as you need to have a weekend-long celebration. If you're in Columbus, and you have some free time this weekend, you should probably go check it out. Do it for me, since I won't be there myself.

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